Son of Blood

CHAPTER THREE

The trapdoor was lifted and both made their way down the stone steps to the arch that led on to the wooden stoop that ran along the battlements, where previously Robert had questioned Ademar of Monteroni. The parapet was lit by flaring torches with a man-at-arms standing sentinel every twenty paces; the lack of a known enemy close by did not interfere with what was set practice for an assembled host. Likewise there were mounted pickets out in the approaches to Corato with orders to look out for threats; the Duke of Apulia had enemies in abundance outside those who had so recently broken their oath of fealty.

He began to talk of them now, taking no cognisance of what Bohemund might already know; best to have it all out to ensure he fully understood what his father had to contend with. The province of which Robert was overlord had been carved out, over twenty-five years of continual warfare, of possessions that had either been held by Byzantium, been fiefs of the Holy See or tenuously claimed by the Holy Roman Empire, and they had been hard won. Sicily was a separate affair, for on that island they had fought the Saracens under the auspices of a papal banner — the same holy banner that had been granted to the Christian monarchs of Spain — in what Rome saw as a crusade to push back the infidels who had invaded both Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula centuries before to desecrate churches and turn them into mosques.

Such a banner did not imply any love for the Normans or the Guiscard, him especially; it was more a piece of papal pragmatism that would allow any subsequent pontiff to claim to be the island’s suzerain should the Normans of Apulia succeed in turning out the Saracens. Outside that campaign he was in constant dispute with Rome and suffering excommunication, not for the first time, over the jointly claimed Principality of Benevento. Added to that were the depredations of many of his followers in the Abruzzi, where it was said, thanks to their banditry, that no man was safe to travel for fear of being robbed down to his very small clothes.

Rome’s demand that this cease had only been met in recent months because Apulia needed all its fighting men to put down the revolt, and it would shortly be resumed; as far as Robert was concerned, it was best if any of his unemployed knights sought their plunder outside his domains, not within them.

The bulk of that quarter-century of fighting had been spent in wresting the province they called Langobardia from the Byzantine Empire, who had not surrendered control without a long and arduous contest, while taking the great port cities had led to siege after siege. The one that ended with the capture of the most important, Bari, lasted four whole years and strained the Guiscard’s tactical genius to the very limit. Every success had been followed with a reinvasion by an enemy that refused to lie down; cities and lands had been lost and recaptured for the very simple reason that the provinces of Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria dripped with fertile wealth, most notably oil from the endless olive groves. From Constantinople he felt he had, at present, little to fear if you set aside the gold they employed to bribe his vassals, of which the Eastern Empire seemed to have an endless supply.

‘Thank God, since Manzikert they lack the leaders and men to trouble me on their own.’

When word came from Anatolia, that disastrous battle, eight years previously, it had shocked the whole of Christendom to its foundations; the flower of the Byzantine army utterly destroyed by the Seljuk Turks advancing inexorably out of Asia Minor, the reigning emperor, Romanus IV Diogenes, taken captive, which led to a coup in Constantinople and one of his generals, Michael Dukas, taking the purple. Having done so, he was in no doubt as to the weakness of the Empire and he had written to both Rome and Apulia seeking support.

‘Michael Dukas sought from the Pope a Christian army that would fight the infidel, perhaps one strong enough to reverse the gains the Turks had made. The bait was his good offices to help to heal the rift between the two branches of the faith. The offer to me was more about holding his borders than pushing the Turks back. Three times he wrote and twice I did not reply.’

‘Why?’

Robert laughed. ‘If you had ever received a letter from a Byzantine emperor you would not ask; the language of flattery is enough to make a decent man vomit and if they have perfected anything it is the art of the vague promise. There were hints of high and profitable office without any commitment. In the second letter ideas were again more floated than solid regarding an alliance by marriage to one of Michael’s family. My silence forced them to be definite and the third time their letter included a proposal they knew I would be a fool to refuse.’

Knowing all this, Bohemund cut in to hurry his father on. ‘The hand of one of your daughters, for Constantine, Michael’s son.’

Robert had accepted that with alacrity, sending east his youngest, Olympias, a child of three, to learn their ways and to have her name changed to Helena as she was instructed in the Orthodox rite.

‘Yet it was not an alliance, more a promise of future amity,’ Robert insisted, as he took up his tale in a way that ignored the interruption, maintaining he was not concerned.

Byzantium now had too much on its plate, both internally and externally, to reinvade Italy, but they still had agents willing to spread around money to foster trouble, often with his vassals but especially amongst the Lombards, in order to keep a past and possibly future enemy off balance. Of that latter race the Guiscard was scathing; at one time the Lombards had been fierce conquerors of the land he now held. Over the five hundred years since they had crossed the Alps they had become not only flabby but racked by suspicion, mistrust and endless betrayal.

Never able to agree on a leader, the Lombards of Southern Italy had first been conquered and turned into imperial vassals by the Byzantine Greeks, then held in servitude while evincing a burning desire to recover what they had lost. They had fomented incessant uprisings under the banner of the western city states such as Salerno, Naples and Capua, only to find, when they looked like they might find success, their supposed leaders being bought off by enemy gold or betraying each other out of a determination to take over the direction of the revolt. After decades of crushing defeats they had sought help, paying the Normans to come south and win their battles, yet their disunity, in contrast to the cohesion and fighting skill of those they had engaged as mercenaries, meant that they now paid those revenues to Norman overlords who were more assiduous in collection than had been their Byzantine predecessors.

The other threat was a distant one, in Bamberg, the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor, where the heir to Charlemagne held his court. He could command a host large enough and of such abilities in combat as to make even the Normans cautious, but between Apulia and the Western Empire lay Rome, not only physically but also as a place that occupied almost the whole of imperial attention. The seat of incalculable wealth, the papacy had at its disposal vast spiritual power, but that did not go uncontested and such disagreements came to the fore in the election of the Pope. The Western emperors insisted that any candidate for investiture must have their approval; the more bellicose members of the Curia maintained it was a matter for them alone and none of anyone else’s business, particularly a layman, however grand his title.

That was not a position agreed to by either the population or the senatorial families of Rome, ever ready to bribe the mob to support one of their blood to the highest ecclesiastical office, for the very good reason that it was the fount of prosperity, as well as the giver of wealthy benefices to the elected man’s relatives. The result was too often a split, with two popes in contention, one either the Emperor’s choice in conjunction with the Roman aristocrats, or the candidate from the Curia supported by those same elements who peopled the Roman Senate; they shifted their backing to wherever they saw personal or family advantage.

The so-called investiture crisis had been bubbling for almost as long as the Normans had been in Italy and showed no signs of abating. The ecclesiastical fight was led now by Archdeacon Hildebrand, a low-born but cunning Lombard who had risen from mere monk to become advisor to a succession of pontiffs. Strong in the cause of papal independence, he stood four-square against imperial interference in a battle the Guiscard had often thought those Hildebrand served might have let die down for the sake of peace. But the major difficulty was that men came to that office in their advanced years and were therefore inclined to expire instead of enjoying the long reign that might have solved the problem by extended negotiation.

If the Curia elected one pope, the Holy Roman Emperor would bring on the election of a rival, his preferred candidate, so it was ever a troubled responsibility full of splits and strife; Hildebrand’s pope was likely to spend as much time under siege in the Castel St Angelo as enjoying the comforts of the Lateran Palace, either hiding from the wrath of the Emperor or the easily aroused Roman mob, while trying to deny the claims of the imperial antipope. With the last two pontiffs it had been Norman military pressure, given in return for the confirmation of their titles, that had allowed them to serve out their terms.

‘It is that which keeps them from combining, Bohemund. I have no need to remind you, that if we wrested the lands we hold from Byzantium, the titles were granted to us from the papacy.’ A discernible nod was all that was required in response. ‘And you will also be well aware they were not originally granted out of generosity but unwillingly extracted from Pope Leo after Civitate.’

There was no need to relay to Bohemund anything about that battle, which for the forces of the papacy ranked with Manzikert. The Normans of Italy, from both Capua and Apulia, under the leadership of Humphrey de Hauteville, had been ranged against and massively outnumbered by a combination of a Byzantine army and a papacy that for once had imperial contingents from Bamberg, as well as the rulers of Northern Italy south of the Brenner Pass, all combined to finally put paid to Norman depredations in Southern Italy.

Civitate is where the combined forces sought to force a decision, but the Normans got themselves between the arms of the enemy and kept them apart, which allowed them to fight against less daunting odds, though even then they had many fewer men than their opponents. But they had that one tactical gift their enemies lacked: cohesion, and the Norman victory was overwhelming — a powerful force of Swabians provided by the Emperor died to a man — and the subsequent rout resulted in the capture of Pope Leo. He was obliged, he later maintained coerced, into granting the Norman leaders legal rights to both the lands and titles they had taken by main force, this while the Byzantines melted away. The Battle of Civitate had secured the Norman place in Italy and formed the cornerstone of what Robert now held.

‘And for all we laud it, let me tell you we must have had God on our side. If we had lost that battle every Norman in Italy would have been lucky to see their homeland again. More likely our bodies would have been hung from every available tree, as the Romans were wont to treat those they defeated. Every pope since Leo, instead of confirming us as they have, would take what we gained there back and see us damned if they had an army.’

‘But they do not.’

‘Which is not to assume they never will. If Leo, God rest his soul, once gathered a host to seek to dislodge us, another may do so again and that goat Hildebrand hates us as much as he hates Bamberg. I repeat, it is only dissension that keeps our enemies weak to both the east and the north.’ There was a moment when Robert seemed to brood, as though disinclined to be open about the trend of his thoughts. ‘What do you know of Richard of Capua?’

The abruptness of that enquiry startled Bohemund somewhat; it was like being back in the Monteroni schoolroom in which he had been taught Latin and Greek by the monk Ademar had employed, a fellow of short temper and an abiding love of physical chastisement when answers were slow in coming and spittle-filled fury when his charge refused to answer. Even with that memory uppermost there was no choice but to respond.

‘He is all-powerful in Campania, is wed to your sister and was allied with our family at Civitate. It was with his uncle, Rainulf Drengot, that our family first took mercenary service.’

Robert nodded but did not immediately respond; it was as if he was pondering on that history. William and Drogo de Hauteville, newly arrived from Normandy, had first been engaged as lances by Richard of Capua’s uncle, then styled Lord of Aversa, though as was common with Normans at the time it was a title taken, not granted by any higher power. William had risen through sheer prowess to become Rainulf’s right-hand man; indeed it was he who had secured for him recognition of his Aversa gonfalon, in the process bringing about the fall of the Lombard Prince of Capua.

There had been scant gratitude for his efforts; Drengot had come to resent the de Hautevilles, now five in number and much admired, seeing them as a threat to his position, which had led him to conspire at their downfall with Guaimar of Salerno, Sichelgaita’s father. William had cunningly outfoxed both to become an even greater rival to Rainulf’s power and, in time, not only his equal but superior in the land he held and the forces he could muster. After Drengot’s death his possessions and title had passed to his nephew Richard and for every time Capua and Apulia had cooperated there had been a dozen more times where they had been close to enemies, without either party able or willing to put the rivalry to the ultimate test.

‘It has ever been our habit, we Normans, to combine when threatened, as we did at Civitate, though there has never been much love lost between us, even if Richard is my brother-in-law. Never forget he’s a Drengot. I suspect in styling himself as prince, he sees us as somehow inferior to him, for he is stuffed with arrogant pride.’

That last opinion came out with a growl, causing Bohemund to pose the obvious question. ‘Do you fear him?’

‘Only in concert with another of our enemies,’ Robert replied. ‘We have ever held to our uneasy peace, but now I sense matters have shifted, for this revolt I have just crushed could not have been sustained without outside support and for once I do not see the interference of Constantinople.’

‘Ademar was sure Gisulf had a hand in the uprising.’

‘And Ademar was not mistaken,’ Robert spat.

If there was one name to bring on deep irritation in the ducal breast it was that of the Guiscard’s other brother-in-law, the Prince of Salerno. Where Sichelgaita was steady and a helpmeet, her brother was a mischievous fly-by-night who hated him. Gisulf was an insect he could not quite swat, much as he would like to, for Salerno lay too close to the lands controlled by Richard of Capua and he would have to accede to any attempt to put the prince of that city in his place. If his wife did not hate her brother she knew him to be a dolt with an overinflated sense of his own worth, and she always sided with her husband when his follies were exposed.

‘Gisulf lacks the means to create such mayhem, while all the information I can glean points to Capua.’

‘Did the rebels admit this?’

‘No, but priests and monks travel, and when they do, they talk with each other and with those they serve. Many of them serve me, or depend on me to endow their monasteries and churches, and if they cannot say with certainty that Capua is the villain, they have heard many hints to that effect.’

‘So all you have is rumour?’

‘It is enough,’ Bohemund’s father barked.

‘Is it wrong of me to think proof would be better?’

‘How do you find it? Richard would not become involved himself; he would keep it at arm’s length, allowing stupid Gisulf to think it was he who was generating trouble, but consider this. If Capuan lands border mine they also border the papal possessions and Rome would very much desire that one seat of Norman power should seek to trouble the other, so in alliance with them he is a danger. There are many things to threaten what we hold, Bohemund, as I have just outlined, but at this moment I see my sister’s husband, in combination with Pope Alexander and his slimy helpmeet Hildebrand, as the most pressing. What would be your response if I said that I intend that such a situation should cease to trouble my thinking?’

‘Which means the power of Capua must be broken?’

‘And that would require every lance I could muster, including my brother Roger.’

There was no doubting the meaning of that statement or the invitation it contained. ‘It would be my honour to put my lance into your service once more.’

There was a touch of youthful bombast to that, which had the Guiscard suppressing a smile. ‘Tomorrow I return to Trani to prepare an expedition against our overmighty and double-dealing neighbour. The task I have for you now is to ride to the borderland where my possessions meet those of Capua.’

‘Under whose lead?’

‘You shall have the command, Bohemund.’

‘Not Ademar?’

‘He advises me you are ready to act without him being present.’ Seeing the shoulders square, Robert added, ‘Choose your own lances, not more than thirty, and I would suggest men close to your own age, who are known to be eager for plunder and much inclined to disobey their elders. Feel free to raid Richard’s farms, to burn his crops and interfere with his trade and do not hide that it is you who is the perpetrator. I will let it be known that I have forbidden such acts, but I will also let it be known that you will pay no heed to my commands. I want Richard worrying about you and blind to what is happening further east, to my preparations.’

Robert paused to allow his son to contemplate the action he would carry out, before adding, ‘And if he seeks to recruit you to fight against me, which Richard will do, make as if to accept, but do so with no haste.’

‘Will he believe that I would betray you?’

‘Why not, Bohemund?’ his father barked for a second time, turning to return to his chamber. ‘You have cause enough, do you not?’

‘It is not disapproving to be told that you should be careful what you wish for, husband.’

Sichelgaita of Salerno had strong hands and fingers, well able to ease the pains that assailed her warrior spouse. The bathing pool Robert was relaxing in had been in Trani since Roman times, and if many of his fellow Normans saw such immersion in cool water as risky and likely to soften a man, the Guiscard did not; he was wont to remind his followers that the consuls of Ancient Rome had conquered nearly the whole of the known world and bathed daily. A fear of water might serve in the cold and wet climes of Normandy, where it could bring on the ague, but here in Italy it was to be welcomed, especially now that it was edging towards high summer, when the midday heat made the body run sweat even when still and the beating sun could be enough to strike down a man wearing chain mail.

These were the weeks in which no one campaigned, for it was possible to lose a whole army to the kind of sickness that could assail them when the temperatures made the very earth seem to shimmer and the metal parts of a shield too hot to touch. Added to that the river courses dried up, which was no good for a mounted army and thousands of horses that required up to two sesters of water per day’s march, and that took no account of oxen and donkeys; wells, the only other source, could be poisoned and frequently were by a retreating enemy.

The campaign, when it was launched, would take place once the weather started to cool and the rains filled the lowland rivers, so his conscript Lombards and Greeks could go about their daily occupations until the time came to assemble and be drilled before marching. Training, which for a Norman never ceased, took place in the cool of the morning, and that applied to a duke as much as it applied to the newest lance come south to seek advancement. Robert de Hauteville had been in the sand-covered manege, practising with the men on whom he relied in battle, both mounted and on foot, employing padded lances and hard wooden swords that, when they got through, left heavy bruises, now being soothed and kneaded by his wife. Opponents often asked why the Normans were so successful; such endless preparation was the answer — when it came to an actual battle they were at their peak.

He winced as his wife pressed hard on a long, bluish welt, given to him by one of his knights who had, and this was rare, got through his guard on more than one occasion to strike home. For once, that morning, he had not dominated the manege and even now he felt an unusual degree of lassitude, almost a desire to close his eyes and sleep, not made any less enticing by the way he was being nagged. Sichelgaita, of course, had enquired as to his health — she had noted his weariness — and had her concerns brusquely brushed aside, but he was not feeling himself and his response was tired to a woman whose opinions he usually inclined to treat with great respect.

‘You seem certain Bohemund will be seduced by my brother-in-law.’

‘The boy hates you, even if you are not told of his loathing.’

‘I am told he admires me.’

‘You listen too much to Ademar and he is blinded by his regard for his wife.’

From an open arch a breeze came in from the Adriatic, a hot wind from the east that did nothing to ease his lethargy. ‘And you think too much like a Lombard.’

Sichelgaita laughed and it echoed off the tiled chamber walls, for it was no slight creature that sat on the pool edge, her feet submerged to the knees. She was a blonde Amazon who could stand toe to toe with Robert, was his equal in height and had a frame to match. Both being huge, it needed a stout bed to hold them and an even more robust construction when they engaged in carnal conversation, for when it came to enthusiasm and frequency in the bedchamber Sichelgaita could match her husband for gusto there too.

‘What are you saying to me, husband? That Normans are more faithful to their overlords?’

Normally one to share the humour of such a remark, Robert just shook his head and began to haul himself out of the water, falling back as a pair of servants rushed forward with drying cloths. That was followed by a curse, then a more powerful effort, and once he was upright on the mosaic floor he grabbed a cloth and wrapped it round his trunk, making for the open arch, there to allow the warm breeze coming off the Adriatic to dry his upper body.

‘Bohemund will be tested and he will either pass that test or fail it.’

That Sichelgaita prayed for the latter was no secret to Robert; she hated and feared Bohemund, for if his father had monitored his progress as he grew to manhood so had she, and for once it seemed more pressing than normal. To be so tired, so lacking in vigour was unusual, almost novel to the Guiscard, who was famous for rarely succumbing to the fevers and agues that afflicted others with whom he fought and marched. Yet at this moment he could feel the ache in his thighs and across his lower back that he knew to be the onset of some kind of malaise. Less normal was the feeling of morbidity, which he forced himself to suppress; he would suffer a few days of discomfort as he had in the past and would then, as usual, be back to his full and formidable strength.

Robert de Hauteville was not one to brood on his own mortality, even if he knew the number of his years and was aware that he was likely to expire before Bohemund and his legal heir. His son Roger, known as Borsa for his habit when a child of always counting the contents of his purse, was as yet physically no match for his older half-brother, which was odd given the brute size of his parents. Not that he was tiny; more that he was of an average height instead of a commanding one and showed no sign that he might put on a spurt to alter those dimensions. Borsa too had been in the manege that morning and he was, for his fourteen summers, a hearty fighter in contest against those of his own age, though in no way exceptional.

Such limitations extended to his manner, which was reticent where it needed to be bold, and to his father’s way of thinking his son and heir was also too inclined to be swayed by priests; the boy spent far too much time on his knees. A pious man by his own lights, the Guiscard was of the opinion that God had to be kept in his proper place; no man, not even a pope — and that had been proved too many times to be gainsaid in their own venal bailiwick — could rule by the tenets of Jesus Christ. Robert worshipped regularly and was generous in his endowments, funding abbeys and building churches, while at the same time doing all in his power to spread the tenets of the Roman practice of the Christian religion with which he had been raised by, allowing monks sent by Rome to freely proselytise, but he refused to be a slave to faith.

This he did, notwithstanding his own present state of excommunication — was it the third occasion or the fourth he had been denied a state of grace by Rome? Not that he cared; it was a stricture that carried so little weight in the lands over which he held sway, for most of his subjects were Greeks and still adhered to the Eastern rite which they had practised for centuries. Likewise the Lombards, while those of his own persuasion owed everything they had or could hope for to him. In terms of worship things were changing among his subjects, but slowly and not without resentments that could be added to all the other grievances the ruled held against their Norman overlords.

The entrance of his chamberlain broke the train of thought he was following, a brooding both on his state of grace and his troubled relations with Rome. Here to see him was the man entrusted to ensure that what his master needed to know was put before him in terms that allowed for decisions to be made; his other task was to keep at bay the minor matters that fell beneath the ducal dignity.

‘My Lord, I have the prisoner, Lord Peter, in your privy chamber, as you desired. Also there is a communication from Constantinople under the imperial seal that is said to be significant and is for only you to see.’

There was a moment when Robert felt like saying both would be required to wait, but it could not be. There would be much to consider on top of that, for after his chamberlain, and despite all his efforts to ease the burden of ruling, would come his treasurer, then the Master of the Host to report on the state of his supplies, then followed the various leaders he had tasked to plan the training of his forces. After he had dealt with those there would come a number of merchants and traders, ships’ captains and guild masters, too important to ignore, supplicants seeking either favours or relief from the customs duties he demanded. Finally, in order that his subjects should know they had access to his largesse and the rule of law, he would need to listen to a whole raft of petitions from those who felt their lives blighted by either the principles he imposed, or the lack of his hand where it was weak.

‘Let’s deal with the flea first; I’ll come as soon as I’m dressed.’